Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories.

by M. T. W.

CONNOR MAGAN'S LUCK.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CONNOR."]

"I'm in luck, hurrah!" cried Connor Magan, as he threw up his brimless hat into the air--the ringing, jubilant shout he sent after it could only spring from the reservoir of glee in the heart of a twelve-year-old boy. Giving a push to the skiff in which his father sat waiting for him, he jumped from the sh.o.r.e to the boat, and struck out into the Ohio river.

Tim Magan, father, and Connor Magan, son, were central figures in a very strange picture.

Let us take in the situation.

It was a Western spring freshet. The Ohio was on a rampage--a turbulent, coffee-colored stream, it had risen far beyond its usual boundaries, washed out the familiar land-marks, and, still insolent and greedy, was licking the banks, as if preparatory to swallowing up the whole country.

Trees torn up by the roots, their green branches waving high above the flood, timbers from cottages, and wrecks of bridges, were floating down to the Gulf of Mexico.

It was curious to watch the various things in the water as they sailed slowly along. Demijohns bobbed about. Empty store boxes mockingly labelled _dry goods_ elbowed bales of hay. Sometimes a weak c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo from a travelling chicken-coop announced the whereabouts of a helpless though still irrepressible rooster. Back yards had been visited, and oyster-cans, ash-barrels and unsightly kitchen debris brought to light. It was a mighty revolution where the dregs of society were no longer suppressed, but sailed in state on the top wave.

"It is an idle wind which blows no one good," and amid the general destruction the drift-wood was a G.o.d-send to the poor people, and they caught enough to supply them with fire-wood for months. Logs, fences, boards and the contents of steamboat woodyards were swept into the current. On high points of land near the sh.o.r.e were collected piles bristling with ragged stumps and limbs of trees. The great gnarled branches of forest trees sometimes spread over half the river, while timbers lodging among them formed a sort of raft which kept out of the water the most wonderful things--pieces of furniture, and kitchen utensils which shone in the sun like silver.

Cullum's Ripple is a few miles below Cincinnati. Here the deep current sets close to the sh.o.r.e, making a wild kind of whirlpool or eddy that brings drift-wood almost to land; the rippling water makes a sudden turn and scoops out a little cove in the sand. It is a splendid place for fishermen, but quite dangerous for boats.

Not far above Cullum's Ripple is situated the Magan family mansion, or shanty. The river is on one side, and two parallel railroads are on the other. On the top of the bank, and on a level with the railroads, is a piece of land not much longer or wider than a rope-walk, and on this only available sc.r.a.p the Railroad Company have built a few temporary houses for their workmen. They are all alike, except that a morning-glory grows over Magan's door.

The colony is called Twinrip possibly the short of "Between Strip." (If the name does not mean that, will some one skilled in digging up language roots, please tell me what it does mean?) The atmosphere around these cabins is as filled with bustling, whistling confusion as a chimney with smoke.

Besides the water highway, on the other side, just a few feet beyond the iron roads, a horse-car track and a turnpike offer additional facilities for locomotion. Birds perch on the numerous telegraph wires amid wrecks of kites and dingy pennons--once kite-tails--nothing hurts them; and below the children of Twinrip appear just as free and safe, and seem to have as much delight in mere living as their feathered friends.

The Magans were a light-hearted Irish family, whose cheerfulness seemed better than eucalyptus or sunflowers to keep off the fever and ague, and who made the most of the little bits of sunshine that came to them. Tim, a strong-armed laborer, was brakeman on the Road. His wife, a hopeful little body, a woman of expedients, was voted by her neighbors the "cheeriest, condolingest" woman in Twinrip.

Good luck, according to her, was always coming to the Magans. It was good luck brought them to America--by good luck Tim became brakeman. It was good luck that the school for Connor was free of expense, and so convenient.

Her loyalty to her husband rather modified the expression of her views, yet she often expatiated to her eldest on his advantages, beginning, "There's your father, Connor--I hope you'll be as good a man! remember it wasn't the fashion in the ould country to bother over the little black letters--people don't _have_ to read there--but you just mind your books, and some day you may come to be a conductor, and snap a punch of your own."

No doubt Connor made good resolutions, but when he sat by the window in the school-room and looked at the dimpling, sparkling river, so suggestive of fishing, or at the green trees filled with birds, he was not as devoted to literature as a free-born expectant American citizen ought to be. The teacher was somewhat strict, and it may have been in some of her pa.s.ses with Connor, the "bubblingoverest" of all her youngsters, that she earned the name of a "daisy lammer."

But the boy knew some things by heart that could not be learned at school. To his ear, the steam whistle of each boat spoke its name as plainly as if it could talk. He need not look to tell whether a pa.s.sing train was on the O. & M. or on the I.C. & L. He knew the name of every fiery engine, and felt an admiration--a real friendship for the resistless creatures.

To climb a tree was as easy for him as if he were a cat; there were rumors that he had worked himself to the top of the tall flag-staff--which was as smooth as a greased pole--but I will not vouch for their truth. He could swim like a duck, and paddled about on a board in the river till an ill-natured flat-boatman often snarled out that "that youngster would certain be drowned, if he wasn't born to be hanged."

But the delight of Connor's life was to "catch the first wave" from a big steamer. Dennis Maloney was his comrade in this perilous game. They rowed their egg-sh.e.l.l of a boat close to the wheel. Drenched with spray--for a moment they felt the wild excitement of danger. Four alert eyes, four steady hands kept them from being sucked under--then came the triumph of meeting the first wave that left the steamboat, and the extatic rocking motion of the skiff as she rode the other waves in the wake--but to catch the first was the point in the frolic! Connor was known to many of the pilots as an adept in "catching the first wave."

Sometimes he was "tipped" by an unlooked for motion of the machinery, but was as certain as an india-rubber ball to rise to the surface, and a swim to sh.o.r.e was but fun to the young Magan.

In the house, Mother Maggie was happy when little Mike was tied in his chair, and a bar put in the doorway to keep him from crawling into the attractive water, if he should break loose; and when the door was bolted on the railroad side, he was allowed to gaze through the window at the engines smoking and thundering by all day, and fixing each blazing red eye on him at night--an entrancing spectacle to the child. And when the still younger Pat was tucked up in bed sucking a moist rag, with sugar tied up in it, her world was all right, and at rest.

But it would have taken a person of considerable penetration, or as Maggie said one who knew all "the ins and the outs" to see the peculiar good luck of _this_ day. The water was swashing round within a few feet of the door. Some of the workmen had moved their beds to the s.p.a.ce between the tracks, which was piled up with kitchen utensils, and looked like a second-hand store.

In these days of devotion to antiques, we hear dealers in such wares say that things are more valuable for being carefully used. This would not apply to Twinrip's relics. The poor shabby furniture looked more than ever dilapidated in the open daylight. The social air of a home that was lived in, pervaded this temporary baggage-room between the tracks. One child was asleep in a cradle, others were eating their coa.r.s.e food off a board. When a sprinkling of rain fell, an old grandmother under an umbrella fastened to a bed-post went on knitting, serenely.

Youngsters who needed rubbers and waterproofs about as much as did Newfoundland dogs, enjoyed the fun. One four-year old, sitting on a tub turned upside down, was waving a small flag, a relic of the Fourth of July--and looking as happy and independent as a king.

It took all his wife's hopeful eloquence to comfort Tim. There was no water in Tim's cellar, because he had no cellar. The cow, their most valuable piece of property, was taken beyond the tracks up on the hillside, and fastened to a stake in a deserted vineyard. If the worst came to the worst, and they were drowned out of house and home, their neighbors were no better off, and they would all be lively together.

That was the way Maggie put it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDEPENDENT AS A KING.]

"Do you moind, Tim," she said, "when Keely O'Burke trated his new wife to a ride on a hand-car? Soon as your eyes lighted on him you shouted like a house-a-fire, 'Number Five will be down in three minutes!'

Didn't Keely clane lose his head? But between you, you pushed the car off the track in a jiffy. And Mrs. O'Burke's new bonnet was all smashed in the ditch, an' the b.l.o.o.d.y snort of Number Five knocked you senseless.

Who would have thought that boost of the cow-catcher was jist clear good luck? And you moped about with a short draw in your chist, and seemed bound to be a grouty old man in the chimney corner that could niver lift a stroke for your childer, ah' you didn't see the good luck, you know, Tim--but when the prisident sent the bran new cow with a card tied to one horn, an' Connor read it when he came home from school: '_For Tim Magan, who saved the train. Good luck to him!_'--wasn't it all right then? Now you are as good as new, and our mocley is quiet as a lamb, and if I was Queen Victoria hersel, she couldn't give any sweeter milk for me. She's the born beauty."

Well, Connor was his mother's own boy for making the most and the best of everything, and _he_ saw several items of good luck this day.

First: The river had risen so near the school-house that the desks and benches were moved up between the tracks and the school dismissed; therefore there was perfect freedom to enjoy the excitement of the occasion. It was as good as a move or a fire.

Second: There was so much danger that the track might be undermined that all trains were stopped by order of the Railroad Company; therefore his father was at liberty.

Third, and best of all: Larry O'Flaherty, who lived up Bald Face Creek, had lent him his skiff for the day. The boys had had an extatic time the evening before, hauling in drift-wood. Though the coal-barges had bright red lights at their bows, and the steamboats were ablaze with green and red signals, and blew their gruff whistles continually, yet it was hardly safe to go far from the sh.o.r.e at night because the Ripple was so near. When the river was _rising_ the drift was driven close to land, while _falling_ it floated near the middle of the river. Connor could see the flood was still rising, and there were possibilities of a splendid catch, for it was daylight, and they could go where they pleased with Larry's boat.

Father and son pushed out into the river. Connor felt as if he owned the world. Short sticks and staves were put in the bottom of the boat. Both fishermen had a long pole with a sharp iron hook at the end with which, when they came close to a log, they harpooned it. Bringing it near, they drove a nail into one end, and tying a rope round the nail, they fastened their prize to the stern of the boat. They took turns rowing and spearing drift-wood; and when the log-fleet swimming after them became large, they went to sh.o.r.e and secured it.

When the dripping logs were long and heavy, it was the custom to fasten them with the rope close to a stake in the bank, and leave them floating. At low water they were left high and dry on the sand.

No other drift-wood gatherers meddled with such logs. They were considered as much private property as if already burning on the hearth.

"I'm going up the hill to feed the cow, Connor," said his father, after a great deal of wood of every size and shape had been landed. "Mind what you are about, and take care of Larry's gim of a boat. It was mighty neighborly to lind it for the whole day. See now, how much drift you can pick up by yourself."

Connor felt the responsibility, and worked diligently. He had twice taken a load to sh.o.r.e, and was quite far again in the stream, when he saw a strange sight. It was not Moses in the bulrushes, to be sure--but a child in a wicker wagon, floating down the current amid a lot of sticks and branches. The hoa.r.s.e whistle of a steamboat near meant danger; and to the eye of Connor the baby-craft seemed but a little above the water, and to be slowly sinking.

Connor's shout rang back from the Kentucky hills as if it came from the throat of an engine.

No one answered.

There were great logs between his skiff and the child--logs and child were all moving together. Should he abandon Larry's precious boat?

Connor could not consider this. He plunged into the water and swam round the logs. He never knew how he did it--he never knew how he cut his hand--he never felt the pounding of the logs--he only knew that he caught the wagon, kept those black eyes above the water, and pulled the precious freight to sh.o.r.e. Then, while the water was streaming from him in every direction, he sprang up the few steps to his mother's cabin, and without a word placed the child, still in the wagon, inside the door!

Running back as swiftly as his feet would carry him, Connor had the good luck to find the deserted boat close to sh.o.r.e, jammed in a ma.s.s of drift-wood, just in the turn of the Riffle.

Dragging it up and along the sh.o.r.e, he fastened it to a fisherman's stake just by Twinrip. Then Connor felt he had discharged his duty--Larry O'Flaherty's boat was safe--high and dry out of reach of eddying logs.

Now, eager, dripping, and breathless--with eyes like stars, he flew home again.

"Oh, mother," he said, "she's fast to the post and not a hole knocked into her, and ain't her eyes black and soft as our mooley cow's and I found her before the General Little ran her down--and I'm going to keep her always--_I found her_--isn't it lucky we have a cow?"